Agriculture Business Week

How much budget is really allocated for agriculture on a yearly basis?
I was told that there are two schools of thought in the AFMA budget. First is that the AFMA budget is the additional budget of Php20B for the first year of AFMA implementation and Php17 billion every year thereafter for six years and on till 2015 according to AFMA extension law. According to this school of thought, the AFMA budget is being provided in the form of what was called the GATT budget of the pre-AFMA period. Hence now, people refer to the figure which is the DA budget consisting of budgets of the DA bureaus and attached agencies and corporations.

The second school of thought is that all of the DA’s budgets-the budget of the Office of the Secretary, the bureaus, attached agencies and corporations-and what is called Agriculture and    Fisheries Modernization Program (AFMP) budget-are all AFMA budget. According to this school of thought, the intent of AFMA is to overhaul all agricultural and fisheries programs and so all of the budget going to the DA and the so called AFMP budget are all AFMA budget. Moreover, the budget for AFMA activities of other AFMA-implementing departments and agencies like the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Commission on Higher Education, agricultural and fishery state universities and colleges’ local government units and the National Nutrition Council are likewise AFMA’ budget. Because-of the conflicting interpretations on what should be the AFMA budget, the experts commissioned by COCAFM to assess the implementation of AFMA after five years suggested that rather than harping on the failure of government to provide for the requirements of AFMA, monitoring should focus on how the budget is being used instead.

How do we correct these lapses in the implementation of the law?
The implementation of laws is the job of the executive committee. What we do here is legislation and pointing out the lapses in the budgetary process. But there really is a big gap between government policies. We have good laws on the implementation of the budget. They say here is a budget for water or water impounding dams, farm to market roads but wherever we go, there is a big lack. All senators and congressmen put farm to market roads in their respective districts, but you don’t know where these go. Well a classic example of the misuse of funds is the fertilizer fund scam. That’s Php800M but it goes down the drain because of corruption. How many more fertilizer fund scams are there that we haven’t found out? So it’s really a misallocation of the budget.

We will have a Budget Workshop On June 5 2009 to clarify AFMA budget issues. We are inviting all AFMA departments and agencies to participate so they could tell us how much they allocate for AFMA every year. This workshop will once and for all give everyone a uniform definition of AFMA budget and provide all those analyzing the budget in thee executive and legislative branches a coherent basis for analysis. We will also make there AFMA agencies account what they have done for the last fen years. I learned that the DA as a lead agency in AFMA implementation does not feel it has the ascendancy to monitor other departments. Therefore COCAFM should do it.

For instance, in the workshop, we will ask what the CHED has done in the implementation of the National Agriculture and Fisheries Education System (NAFFS). CHED coordinates the implementation of NAFFS. What has it done in tailoring the integrated elementary and secondary curriculum to the needs of the children of farmers and fisherfolk in the rural areas? Should we use extensively the Alternative Learning System of the Department of Education so as to give appropriate education to these children in remote rural areas? How much budget should go to mobile teachers-because in remote areas we have to encourage teachers who will sacrifice to reach both children and adults who do not have functional literacy”? What about education in ancestral domain areas? Education in land areas where we give collective tenure? Do Filipinos know how to wart: collectively or cooperatively’? What land of mobile teachers what kind of educational preparation do or should these mobile teachers have in order to be effective in dealing with the issue of human nature and working cooperatively? In upland agroforestry, have we solved the tragedy of the commons? We want out farmers to integrate their landholdings to achieve economies of scale but do they have the incentive to work cooperatively? Because human beings cooperate only when there is an incentive to cooperation, how will the upland farmers reforest the mountains when they do not have livelihood while waiting to harvest from long-gestating harvestable trees? We give the highest budget to education but are we giving the right education to our farmers and fisherfolk?

How is the agricultural sector coping with this current global financial meltdown that we’re experiencing?
I think its all opportunity for the agriculture sector because we have the land to till, because returning overseas Filipinos will return to their provinces and look at the possibility of returning to tilling the soil. I’m not saving that all OFWs must be farmers but ‘maybe making use of whatever land they have that they have not utilized. I see that this coming decade , is the decade of the return of educated Filipinos who immigrated to developed countries like the US and Europe in the 6os and Los. And they are now putting to good use their lands that have been idle for decades. And those who do not have lands like those who went to the Middle East and East Asian countries are having lands because in their childhood in the 6os they were children of tenants feeling downtrodden by their rich landlords. They now want to stage a grand comeback. The v nom build big houses in sprawling lots in the barrios, planting and investing in rural businesses that give off-farm jobs to rural residents. We know our economy is propelled to a great extent by the remittances of overseas Filipinos. Therefore we should study the direction of inn- rural economy as a result of thee remittances and the mindsets of returning Filipinos. We should study the changing landscape in rural areas. And we should modify our policies according to ethnographies made by economic anthropologists and rural sociologists, not only according to the macroeconomic formulas of economists.

We also encourage our young citizens to take up agriculture and similar courses in college as I said earlier-instead of them always wanting to be managers in companies and going to urban areas to work in call centers. If they want to become managers they should manage their own agribusiness companies and use ICT to market their products. They should be able to set call centers for their agribusinesses. Graduates of ICT in agri SUCs should be able to use computer science for agri and fishery business. So there must be a paradigm shift towards interest in agriculture or to go into food and nonfood production and processing. Nonfood processing includes rubber and fiber production and processing for example. We always forget the nonfood in agriculture in our references.. We can only make the shift ‘ attractive if we have adequate and correct support for human resource development in agriculture and fishery.

How would you assess the performance of the DA right now?
I’m new as Chairperson of the Agri Committee so I won’t be able to gauge it. But there’s always room for improvement. But based on the few months of consultations I’ve done, government’s presence is hardly felt. I hate to say it because Secretary Yap is a friend but there is still a big gap so government’s presence is not felt whether in agriculture, in health, in education.

What is your suggestion to improve the situation?
What we need is to have the right capital for those who already have the land for agrarian reform and the agriculture department to coordinate with each other. There are, according to statistics, two million farmer beneficiaries who have land-for the beneficiaries of the 20-year CARP which expired whose support services have not been given by the government. That’s why the resources are still not being utilized. If the DA and the LGUs could indeed become ‘partners in extending services to farmers and fisherfolk – by teaching them how to access credit for farm inputs and postharvest facilities, how to avail crop insurance, how to pay their debts, how to process and market their products, how to plan for their production and market infrastructure requirements, how to follow the municipal land use plan that considers a reservation area for food and non-food production among competing land uses, then we have emancipated from poverty two million farmer beneficiaries. That is why it is important that we pass the National Agricultural System Extension Bill. We should energize the Municipal Agricultural Officers or MAOs because they are the closest to the farmers and fisherfolk. I wish the DA would agree to use the extension fund in the commodity programs for the renationalization of salaries of our extension workers and the Department . of Budget and Management would be creative in the treatment of the transfer of the said fund and support the legislation. I wish our local chief executives would all have the realization that in their hands now lie the salvation of our food and non-food production and processing efforts in our agricultural lands. In the new CARP law that will be extended for the next five years, we have to make sure that we don’t only distribute land-take from the rich and give to the poor but also provide them the wherewithal to exploit and utilize the land. Then the implementation of the law could probably be successful. We should consult with the farmers what they really need and I think that the agencies of the DA must do consistent consultations in the region, not just have a general program but something more area specific.

Incidentally, I should mention that last year I asked the COCAFM to certify as urgent the passage of the National Land Use Bill. We should be able to halt the conversion of agriculturally-productive lands into subdivisions and other uses. There should be rationality in our conversion activities. Let us convert infertile lands only. I hope that we could pass the National Agricultural Extension System Bill, the Agri-Agra Bill and the National Land Use Plan Bill before the end of this Congress.

What is your overall vision for agriculture?
I’d like to see the farmers not the poorest sector but the richest. Farmers with even little piece of land who would utilize integrated farming, organic farming farmers who really are self-sufficient in terms of their daily survival, who could really put their children to school. Empowered farmers who are economically independent. I’d like to see the same thing for our fisherfolk as well, I’d like to see a greater interest in agricultural State Colleges and Universities updating their curricula with the latest in agriculture. I’d like to see maybe centers of excellence in regions and farmers having access to computers and information on farming technology. I’d like to see more of our produce being exported to the EU, to the ASEAN countries, to the US with no discrimination on certain products like our mangoes, for example. So I’d like to see a more robust trade with our trading partners on our agriculture products. Or maybe opening up of more trade to encourage more markets for our farmers. I’d also like to emphasize that it is important that we don’t look at agriculture in isolation from other sectors in our society. Climate change considerations and disaster risk prevention and sustainable development are very important. So all the compliance of existing environmental awareness of climate change adaptation and knowledge of agriculture and R&D. All of these should go hand in hand.

By Ronald G. Mangubat